"Granted, hindsight is 20/20, but some awfully strange substances have been used for pharmaceutical purposes in the past -- and some might argue, continue to be used today. Here are some vintage advertisements touting items that we might balk at taking today..."

"A selection of some of the most awesome Behind-the-scenes shots. Back when set designs were huge and hand made, when special effects where mechanic and photographic and film stars were risking their lives on the set.

Below, - a self portrait of Stanley Kubrick with his daughter, Jack Nicholson and the crew at the set of The Shining..."

A federal judge has issued an opinion in EPIC v. NSA, and accepted the NSA’s claim that it can “neither confirm nor deny” that it had entered into a relationship with Google following the China hacking incident in January 2010. EPIC had sought documents under the FOIA because such an agreement could reveal that the NSA is developing technical standards that would enable greater surveillance of Internet users. The “Glomar response,” to neither confirm nor deny, is a controversial legal doctrine that allows agencies to conceal the existence of records that might otherwise be subject to public disclosure. EPIC plans to appeal this decision. EPIC is also litigating to obtain the National Security Presidential Directive that sets out the NSA’s cyber security authority. And EPIC is seeking from the NSA information about Internet vulnerability assessments, the Director’s classified views on how the NSA’s practices impact Internet privacy, and the NSA’s “Perfect Citizen” program..."

-- Some Russian Air Force goodness.

"Mice with human-derived livers, goats with human blood cells, and other animals that contain human genes or cells are arguably valuable tools for medical research, but they also can raise tricky ethical questions and trigger public controversy. Acknowledging this reality, a report issued today by the British Academy of Medical Sciences recommends that the U.K. government establish an expert commission to help regulate certain types of experiments involving "animals containing human material."

The report's authors hope that early public discussion of potentially controversial work—before it is undertaken—will help to encourage wider acceptance of such research. "We are trying to get this issue out there before anything has happened," says geneticist Martin Bobrow of the University of Cambridge, who chaired the academy's working group. "If public has heard about something, they are less likely to get irritable when something does hit the headlines."

The report proposes that experiments with animals containing human material (ACHM) should be divided into three categories: those that should be subject to the same oversight and regulation as other animal experiments, those that should undergo extra review before receiving permission to proceed, and a few that should be entirely off-limits. Areas that should undergo extra scrutiny include experiments that modify an animal's brain to make it more "human-like," experiments that place functional human germ cells in animals, experiments that could make animals' appearance or behavior more human, and experiments that add human genes or cells to nonhuman primates..."

"Here's something you never want to hear: "That loud booming sound is coming from inside the house!"

That's what one Inocenta Hernandez from Guatemala City learned after a sudden noise caused her to run outside, thinking there had been an explosion nearby. When she realized the problem was inside her home, she returned to find a gaping, three feet wide, 40 feet deep sinkhole beneath her bed.

Hernandez, 65, was relieved that the damage was only to her house, and hadn't harmed her grandchildren, who had been playing near the bed. This was a little too close to home, but she couldn't have been too surprised that a sinkhole had visited her city.

Guatemala City is prone to spawning giant pits, which are often caused by tropical rain storms. Sinkholes are natural depressions in the earth that can range anywhere from a few feet to hundreds of acres wide, and measure a shallow foot to 100 feet deep.

A massive chasm opened up in Guatemala City back in May 2010; it swallowed up whole buildings and an intersection. No deaths were blamed on the almost perfect cylindrical crater, though..."

"Police arrested two drunk men from South Jersey for pretending to get arrested after they accidentally locked themselves in the back of a police van taking pictures of themselves.

Ryan Letchford and Jeffrey Olsen thought it would be funny to break into the van and take pictures of each other 'in custody'.

But the prank took a turn for the worse when the van locked with the jokers still inside.

According to police, a third man, who was also drunk, found his friends in the back of the van after leaving a nearby party to search for them, but he was unable to set them free and was forced to call 911.

Radnor constable Mike Connor told the Philadelphia Daily News: 'I came down and unlocked the doors, and "Dumb and Dumber" pranced out of the van.

'They looked a little embarrassed.'

The pranksters didn't regain their freedom for too long, as they were immediately arrested for attempted theft of a motor vehicle, criminal mischief and public drunkenness..."

-- "This dusty island universe is one of the brightest spiral galaxies in planet Earth's sky. Seen nearly edge-on, NGC 253 is only 13 million light-years away, the largest member of the Sculptor Group of galaxies, neighbor to our own local galaxy group. The detailed close-up view is a five frame mosaic based on data assembled from the Hubble Legacy Archive. Beginning on the left near the galaxy's core, the sharp panorama follows dusty filaments, interstellar gas clouds, and even individual stars toward the galaxy's edge at the right. The magnificent vista spans nearly 50,000 light-years. The frame at the far right has been compressed slightly to bring into view an intriguing pair of background galaxies. Designated a starburst galaxy because of its frantic star forming activity, NGC 253 features tendrils of dust rising from a galactic disk laced with young star clusters and star forming regions. NGC 253 is also known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massive black holes near the galaxy's center."

-- An Unofficial Music Video by Kevin Lin.

"A leopard snuck into a a village in India yesterday and mauled 11 people before being killed. Looking at the terrifying pictures makes us feel pretty stupid for complaining about subway construction.

The showdown between the leopard and forest guards happened in a village in West Bengal, India. Villagers attacked the cat with stones and knives, while guards tried driving the cat into a nearby wildlife sanctuary, according to the AP. Eventually the leopard was tranquilized, but it later died of its injuries at a veterinary hospital.

Check out the pictures snapped during the battle. We haven't bothered to caption them, but you can just imagine everyone screaming "HOLY CRAP, IT'S A LEOPARD!" in the local dialect..."

""Are you home mum? I'm just about to drop in."

Those words Konrad Schmidt said over the phone to his mother, Rosemary Schmidt, Sunday were possibly the last ones he ever said. He was calling from the cockpit of a twin-engine small airplane, which he flew into the window of her first-floor bedroom, killing himself, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported.

Rosemary Schmidt survived what police characterized as an attack on the house in Oberhallau, Switzerland. Konrad Schmidt, a qualified pilot, had been feuding with his mother for a long time after his parents' marriage ended, which was followed by his father's death from cancer, the police told The Telegraph.

Konrad Schmidt suffered from depression and also had financial problems, the police said.

The mother's neighbors told the Swiss newspaper Blick that the 47-year-old man flew past the house three times as though he was practicing for his final descent, The Telegraph reported..."

-- Well that's just sad...

After three decades, the shuttle era is all but over and the United States no longer has the means to send astronauts into space. Nasa is looking to the private sector to provide a new generation of space vehicles to take on the work of delivering crew and cargo to the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit. We detail five of the possible successors to the shuttle.

"This posterior lateral spinneret, a silk-spinning organ of a spider, features frond-like setae and whorls of exoskeleton. It belongs to a female Stenoops peckorum, a newly discovered species of goblin spider from southern Florida.

This species was among 17 new species of goblin spider discovered in 2010 by Norman Platnick, curator emeritus in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History.

Despite their fearsome name, goblin spiders are tiny. They tend to be less than 2 millimeters in length. The spinneret pictured above is approximately 30 micrometers across, roughly the diameter of a thin strand of hair.

The five protrusions at the center of the spinneret are spigots that produce a single type of spider silk. The silk, sometimes in combination with silk from other spinnerets, can be used in any number of ways, including reproduction or navigation, but not for a conventional prey-trapping spider web.

"All spiders do make silk, they just don't always use it to catch food," said Platnick. Instead, goblin spiders hunt down and devour whatever small insects they can catch.

Platnick's discovery opens the door for future research on goblin spiders. "Most aspects of their biology have not been explored at all," said Platnick..."

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dmanlt.com has been online since 7.9.2010. It is a website about photography, science, art, technology, nature, culture, current events and everything in between and beyond. It is written and regularly updated by Donatas Urbonas.